


Fire

by angel1876



Series: Carry On [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Internal Monologue, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 06:57:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16012658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel1876/pseuds/angel1876
Summary: There was something in her eyes, something gazing back at him with an intensity he wasn't at all used to.Takes place in the Carry On/Wouldn't That Make a Good Story? universe, but since it's pre-zombies it wouldn't fit with the main story in the slightest. So, I made it it's own thing.Will make a collection for related fics someday so as to keep track of them.





	Fire

It would've been wrong to suggest that he'd not known of her intensity when they'd first started hanging out. 

Kind of hard to miss it, actually. The first thing she'd said to him was to fuck off when he'd stopped to help her with her books. It wasn't something he held against her, they hadn't been friends at the time and Lydia'd already put her on edge, but as first impressions go the moment was more than telling. Danielle was spiteful and angry, and until he and Elise came along, she'd set herself against the entire religion as a whole. 

So it wasn't that he'd not known, it was that he'd not realized how far she was willing to go.

Her wardrobe, first of all. When they'd met, she'd worn a white sweater. Hair tied back, arms typically wound around her front. Unassuming unless confronted, avoided people where possible. Now she'd not be caught dead without her gothic getup, the black clothes, the choker...

The pentagram. Every aspect designed to draw attention, every inch of her changed into this model of defiance. 

Lydia's insistence on antagonizing them was what drove them together, and while Danielle wasn't one to defend herself when she was on her own, she was ready to stand up for others as part of a group. Andrew knew for a fact that if they'd not befriended her, she wouldn't have gone to the lengths that she did. 

It was the sheer fury she showed on a daily basis that unnerved him.  Make no mistake, he was angry too. He was downright livid, but he'd been content to keep his head down and try to avoid problems, not go out and confront them with teeth bared and claws drawn. With each day that passed they'd collectively grown more and more bold, ready to call their peers out on their cruelty. 

Yes, they each built the other up, but there was a difference between the two of them and Danielle. 

It wasn't just the obvious, either. Elise was his best friend, they'd known each other since they were kids, and he'd only known Danielle for a few months. An unfamiliarity was to be expected, but it was something more than that. Despite her every effort to fit in with them, to be part of the group, she still felt so separate. There was an energy about her, this charge, a spark of heat. This woman seemed to burn in a way that set off his every alarm. 

Danielle was on their side. Everything she'd done since this rebellion started had been done for them, for himself and for Elise as much as her. Her loyalty and her willingness to go the extra mile were absolute, a fact that he was grateful for despite what he felt. For all his tension, he knew her as a friend.

Time with her never seemed to dull the effect. It was the sharpness of her words, the bitter taste of cigarettes on her breath, the clenching of her teeth and the pendant 'round her neck.

He knew it wasn't fair even as it nagged at him, twisted inside him like a serpent. Even as he agreed with everything she said, there was a flicker of doubt, a lifetime of being told to beware of people like her, the discomfort of going against the status quo, the stress that came with breaking the rules. A distinct and undeniable sense that he was doing something _bad._

Andrew hated that feeling, hated the wall that it put between them, but that feeling was the price for rebellion. Fighting the system meant stepping out of the comfort zone. 

It was why they'd started dating in the first place. There was no secret, it'd been out in the open between them since day one. Though there was affection, it didn't quite bridge the gap into love, and it certainly had nothing to do with lust, regardless of the judgmental looks they got from their peers. 

And their response to those looks was to keep doing it. To prove that they could, to prove that it wasn't wrong, and to prove that they were still the same people afterward. He'd shove down the flight response they'd built into him and meet her gaze, and through the indignant flames he could still see her. She was still Danielle, not some demon sent to tempt him.

In the end, this wasn't going to be a relationship that was going to last. She was always going to leave, her hatred of the place meant that she'd jump ship the moment the opportunity presented itself. They'd tell themselves that they'd keep in touch, but there'd be nothing to hold them together. 

But that was fine. He had no regrets, and neither did she.


End file.
